The Lay of the Band 
among whom you are only one of a different kind, 
—then all the others, no matter their kind, are 
earth-born companions and fellow mortals. 
Here are the meadow voles. I know that my hay 
crop is shorter every year for them, —a very little 
shorter. And I can look with satisfaction at a cat 
carrying a big bobtailed vole out of my mowing. 
The voles are rated, along with other mice, as injuri- 
ous to man. I have an impulse to plant both of my 
precious feet upon every one that stirs in its run- 
way. 
If that feeling was habitual once, it is so no longer; 
for now it is only when the instincts of the farmer 
get the better of me that I spring at this quiet stir 
in the grass. Perhaps, long ago, my forbears wore 
claws, like pussy; and, perhaps (there is n’t the 
slightest doubt), I should develop claws if I con- 
tinued to jump at every mouse in the grass because 
he is a mouse, and because I have a little patch of 
mucky land in hay. 
One day I came upon two of my voles struggling in 
the water. They were exhausted and well-nigh dead. 
I helped them out as I should have helped out any 
other creature, and having saved them, why, what 
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